Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provides various data transmission services including multimedia sessions such as video conferencing with two-way or broadcast video and audio transmissions. With increased quality and lowered costs, video conferencing has become very popular. This has increased the importance of bit-rate efficiencies for applications such as video conferencing that provide for sharing and transmitting large volumes of multimedia data. Such transmissions use a video encoder that compresses video information so that more information can be sent over a given bandwidth. The compressed signal may then be transmitted to a receiver that decodes or decompresses the signal prior to display. Some networks with lower bandwidths require the lowering of the overall bit-rate in order to receive and display video data even while maintaining visual quality for key content in the video. For networks with relatively large bandwidths, lowering the bit-rate while maintaining visual quality for key content in the video provides a greater bandwidth that is free for use for other transmissions whether related to the display or audio of the video being transmitted or other unrelated network transmissions.